Washington Garners $70 Million in Taxes During First Year of Legal Cannabis Sales

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Washington Garners $70 Million in Taxes During First Year of Legal Cannabis Sales

moneyThere was over $250 million in recreational cannabis sold in Washington during the first year of legal sales, from July 1st, 2014, to July 1st, 2015. In total, this resulted in over $70 million in taxes for the state, according to data released by the state.

In total, there are 160 recreational cannabis outlets reporting sales throughout Washington. The $70 million in taxes garnered – $62 million from excise taxes and the remaining from state and local taxes – is nearly double state projections, which estimated taxes in the first year to be around $36 million.

By comparison, Colorado garnered $44 million in taxes during the first year of sales, despite having more sales overall ($313 million). This is due to cannabis taxes in Colorado being much lower.

Earlier this week Governor Jay Inslee signed into law a measure that eliminates Washington’s three-tier tax structure on recreational cannabis in favor of a single excise tax at the point of sale between retailers and their customers.


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TheJointBlog

2 Comments

  • Greg
    July 4, 2015

    Fantastic,that Washington could raked in that amount of taxes.
    If only our third world government could wake up and decriminalize weed in South Africa….sadly I don’t think that would happen in my life time.

  • Simon
    July 10, 2015

    If this doesn’t get the political big wigs’ attention, I don’t know what will.

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